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    SATA harddrive detection for downgrading XP HELP

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by jak_stoller, Jul 30, 2008.

  1. jak_stoller

    jak_stoller Newbie

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    I hate to make a new thread for this, but after being up for the last 12 hours beating my head against the wall trying to get this to work, and finding none of the solutions listed helpful, I must ask.
    I have an FZ240e, and have had Vista on it since I got it in christmas, and have hated every minute of it. So I decided with my three day weekend to see about whipeing it and installing XP from my XP Home disk (which coincidentaly, I then had to re-install on this old junker IC Power book from '04 so I could look crap up and just to be able to post on here). Anyways, I'm encountering two problems.

    Problem Number One- I'm used to the olden days of computing when you used a banana R bootdisk and did the formating and partitioning through that. My technology curve hasn't kept up with new trends and now I find myself trying to wade through Hiren's Boot Disk 9 to find a software that'll format and partition my drive. Only each one gives me conflicting information, one (Partition Magic) says I have 3 drives, with no labels (as in the C: not in the MAIN or BACKUP that some people put, just no drive designation at all), so I guess what I'm asking is how to properly partition and format the drive.

    Problem Number Two- My XP setup CD fails to see my Harddrive, and as we know the FZ240 doesn't have a floppy drive :( . How do I make it see the drive? I've tried nLite but it didn't work (it didn't see the drive even with the correct drivers setup onto the disk), and I've tried using a USB thumbdrive, but it won't let me pull drivers off the USB (coincidentaly it'll let me install windows to it though... if only it wasn't a 1gb :p).

    Sum up:
    Good Partitioning and Formatting software?, and SATA drive recognition for XP installation?

    Any help would be awesome. I have all the drivers for the machine, double checked against the original database, I just can't get out of the starting gate.

    --Jak
     
    jak_stoller, Jul 30, 2008
    #1
  2. jcovelli

    jcovelli Notebook Deity

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    google "slipstreaming sata drivers" on a flash drive or cd
     
    jcovelli, Jul 30, 2008
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  3. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    Use nLite to slipstream both XP SP3 and the relevant Sony XP drivers into your original XP CD.

    Then you should have trouble-free installation and very little patching and updating to do afterwards.

    John
     
    John Ratsey, Jul 31, 2008
    #3